I was brought up on a farm about 25 miles north of Aberdeen. Both sides of my family had been farmers for generations and both were from north-east Scotland. It was a very normal, healthy upbringing with everything geared towards the routine of the farm.

Life on a farm is a complete contrast with my life now, which is all about presentation, having to be clean and tidy, always travelling, mostly indoors and no routine at all! But farm life does teach you to knuckle down and get on with it. There is no real let up and you always have to be one step ahead, and that's the same for a musician.

My dad had a much more direct effect on my character than my mother. I have no doubt that he passed on to me his realistic, non-fussy attitude. If things went well or if I or my brothers did something to be proud of, he'd just go "hmm, hmm". You knew he was pleased, but he didn't make a big deal of it. If things went wrong he did the same. He seemed to know everything would work out fine in the end.

His way and traits had a huge impact on me and how I dealt with the loss of my hearing when I was about 11. He put an air of calm over the whole situation and understood that I had stubbornness and determination too. My mum worried about what we were going to do, but my dad said: "Evelyn will go on as she always has done. If she could do it an hour ago, she can do it now."

I had begun to play music long before I lost my hearing. My father had a very good ear but he had never learned to read music. He was the youngest of 14 children and left school at 14 to work on the farm, although he never really wanted to be a farmer. He was very happy that one of his children took an interest in music because this was something he might have wanted to do. He played the accordion in a dance band but when we were born he gave it up and we never saw him play.

My mother played the piano and she played the organ at the local church. We had a piano at home although it was more of an ornament. She introduced me to reading music but there were many tears over the kitchen table as she tried to drill the theory into me.

At 16 I left home to go to the Royal Academy in London. I didn't have frequent contact with my parents. I couldn't use the phone and there was no email so we wrote letters and I came home in the holidays.

I took a conscious decision not to have children. When I started performing as a solo percussionist I was trying to create a career that had not existed before. Carving my career was obsessive. I knew it would be difficult to create a balance between family and career so for me it was a very straightforward decision.

• Evelyn Glennie will be playing in the Classic Relief gala comedy concert in support of Comic Relief at the Royal Festival Hall on 7 March (southbankcentre.co.uk, 0871-663-2500)